"Yahoo!"

Congress bars a gas tax

Not for nearly 30 years had a Democratic Congress overridden a Democratic President's veto.* Still, that was exactly what happened to President Carter's $10 billion oil-import tax last week. The levy, which would have cost the U.S. motorist 10-c- per gal., was first rejected by huge margins in both houses. So when Carter carried out his threatened veto, the House did not even debate it. It immediately voted to override the President's veto by an embarrassing 335 to 34. From Republican Strategist Robert E. Bauman of Maryland came a victorious yell: "Yahoo!" Next day the Senate completed the Carter rout, voting against the tax, 68 to 10.

Carter blamed his defeat on congressional spinelessness in an election year. "I recognize the political pressures," he said in his veto message. "I know this is a difficult issue for many members of Congress." Nevertheless, he added, the gas tax was "good public policy and good common sense." Without this kind of action to conserve energy, the U.S. would "remain dangerously vulnerable to severe economic disruptions from terrorism, accident, embargo [or] war."

On the face of it, the President's case looked like a strong one. Oil imports are still running at a ruinous 6 million bbl. a day, and a new tax would probably cut consumption. Indeed some experts urge a fee of not 10-c- but 50-c- or more (most European nations now charge nearly $2 per gal. in taxes). Even so, claims the Administration, the 10-c- charge would save 100,000 bbl. a day. Congress's refusal to impose any tax will therefore be hard to explain when Carter goes to Venice later this month to coordinate allied energy policies.

Congress tacitly went along with the gas tax when Carter proclaimed it last March. But some of the legislators, notably Connecticut Democrat Toby Moffett, suspected that Carter wanted the fee not only to conserve energy but to balance the budget without asking Congress for any new taxes--perhaps even creating some room for an election-year tax cut. Moffett tried to get more figures from the Department of Energy, but was turned down. He and four other Congressmen then joined in a federal lawsuit and won a ruling that Carter had no right to impose such a tax on his own authority. The Administration appealed, and a decision is expected this week.

What figures Moffett did pry loose raised some questions about the Administration's case. While Carter claimed that the fee would save 100,000 bbl. a day, estimates within the DOE ranged as low as 20,000. And even if the saving really was 100,000, a $10 billion tax would mean that the U.S. Government was charging American consumers $270 for every barrel saved.

Already in trouble, Carter made the tactical situation worse two weeks ago by denouncing a laboriously worked-out congressional compromise on the budget, a move that many Congressmen regarded as interference with their function. The mood of the House turned angry, and the gas tax provided a splendid target for that anger. House Speaker Tip O'Neill blocked all action on the bill as long as he could, but the size of the vote showed how overwhelmingly outnumbered he was.

The problem remains: U.S. gas consumption must be cut, and no matter how much U.S. motorists may complain, Carter and Congress must jointly find a way to cut it.

*The The last last occasion: President Truman's unsuccessful veto of the restrictive McCarran-Walter Immigration Act in 1952.

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